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MORNING THIRD.

LESSON.-Exodus, Chapters v. and vi.

MAMA. We have in these chapters, my dear Mary, a striking proof of the natural obduracy and impenitence of the human heart; as well as of the remorseless tyranny which a long course of unchecked power can give rise to—in the refusal of Pharaoh to comply with so modest a request as a three days' leave of absence to his bondmen for the purposes of solemn worship, and his insensibility to the awful judgments by which the petition was enforced. By whom was it presented to the Egyptian King?

MARY. By Moses and Aaron. You know God had sent them on purpose to Pharaoh.

MAMA. Yes, and in addition to this secret commission, which would perhaps have failed in procuring them audience of a heathen prince, Moses might plead his education in the palace, and Aaron was undoubtedly a chief man or elder;

and as such, a natural representative of his people. In whose name did they urge their request?

MARY.

"Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, let my people go." Mama! how wickedly Pharaoh answered; "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? I know not the Lord, neither will I let Israel go."

MAMA. You are shocked, and most naturally, my child, with these profane expressions, even in the mouth of a heathen prince. Are they never heard, think you, in our Christian country, or echoed within the sinful depths of an unrenewed heart?

MARY. Surely, Mama, no one in our times can pretend not to know God.

MAMA. No, Mary; but saving knowledge is, alas! very different from a simple acquiescence in His existence. "Who is the Lord?" is not the language of the "fool" alone, who hath " said in his heart there is no God;" but of the greater fool, who, knowing" that He is," can reconcile that knowledge with neglect of his commandments, indifference to his promises, and defiance of his threatenings. "Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice ?" was the question of Pharaoh. It is that of every one among us by whom that voice, daily heard, is not obeyed. Let us lay this to heart when we feel inclined to wonder at

the revolting presumption of one, on whose ears it fell strangely, and for the first time. Can you fancy any reason why Moses in reply calls Jehovah the "God of the Hebrews?"

MARY. No, Mama.

MAMA. It was not the first time that His power over Egypt for good or evil, had thus been manifested. First, in His judgments on them during the sojourn in their land of Abraham and Isaac; and still more recently, in the wonderful deliverance from famine by means of Joseph, expressly acknowledged by the Pharaoh of that day to be the work of the one true God. But by the "new king" it seems that Joseph, and a greater than Joseph, were alike forgotten. By what argument did Moses and Aaron enforce their petition ?

MARY.

"Lest God should fall on them with pestilence and sword."

MAMA. Hereby indirectly reminding Pharaoh of His power to punish; though in the first instance neither miracle nor menace was made use of.

MARY. Mama, Pharaoh never even took notice of their request, but abused them for hinderng the people. This was a great affront to God.

MAMA. Not greater, my dear, than the tacit forgetfulness of Him, and his requirements, in

which thousands less excusable spend their lives. But did God overlook it in Pharaoh?

MARY. Oh! no.

MAMA. Neither will he in the case of the far less pardonable "despisers" of our day. How was the rage of the proud king's heart against God and his people manifested?

MARY. Oh! the poor creatures were made to work ten times harder, and find straw for their own bricks. Mama! what became of all the bricks which so many thousand people made every day?

MAMA. On what part of the stupendous buildings, whose ruins cover the land of Egypt to this day, the Israelites were employed, we have no means of deciding. But it has pleased Providence to keep entire, for countless ages, prodigious erections of unburnt brick, called Pyramids, the use of which has never been ascertained, and which, as the work evidently of an innumerable population, and monuments apparently of mere ostentation, may serve (if not the identical buildings here mentioned) at least to make us acquainted with their exact materials and gigantic character. You have seen a drawing of them, I think.

MARY. Yes, Mama, in one of Papa's great books of travels. He showed me the inside too,

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and it was nothing but a little dark room that nobody could live in, after all this great trouble. What could it be for?

MAMA. The most natural conjecture, my dear, is, that they were sepulchral chambers; as the Egyptians were most scrupulous about any thing that could contribute to the preservation of their dead. Did you not see a mummy once at the Museum?

MARY. Oh, yes! a frightful, black, smokylooking thing.

MAMA. Yet precisely such as the relics of the proud Kings of Egypt, who employed a whole nation to raise mountains of brick over their remains. But to what end? Their name and memory have alike perished, and the only use of the Pyramids is to recall to the Christian traveller the bondage of Israel and power of Jehovah ! But to whom did the officers of the poor oppressed Israelites carry their complaints?

MARY. First to Pharaoh, and then to Moses and Aaron. And they reflected upon God, Mama, as if He had done them harm instead of good. That was very bad of them!

MAMA. I fear Moses was a sharer, and a more criminal one, in their unbelief, for he too spake " as one of the foolish ones," and " unadvisedly with his lips," before God. How prone is the